How the Repubicans win elections

The Republicans have used dirty tactics to beat the Democrats for the past 20 years. How the Republicans Win by Robert Parry describes their successes and their unfortunately all-too-rare failures.
It started as so much that's bad has with the Republican Nixon. In 1968, Nixon's Presidential campaign team asked the US ambassador in Vietnam to delay the conclusion of peace talks with the Viet Cong to help him win the upcoming US presidential race in which he was standing againt the Democratic incumbent President Lyndon Johnson. The Democrats knew this, but even when they subsequently lost, they did not reveal Nixon’s actions out of concern that it would further divide the country.
In the 1972 election, Nixon was re-elected using his clandestine bugging operations that were revealed later that year when Nixon's operatives (the "plumbers") were caught red-handed planting bugs in the Democrat's Watergate building offices. The reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward made certain that this was loudly reported.
In 1980, the Democratic incumbent President Jimmy Carter was defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan. The republicans had agreed with the Iranians an exchange of weapons for their US hostages, but they has asked that the release should not be until after the Presidential election. The exchange duly happened after Carter left office making Carter look like a loser, and letting newly elected President Reagan kick off his administration by welcoming the hostages home. Again the Democrats smelt a rat but didn't have sufficient evidence to accuse the Republicans, and when they did have the evidence in 1992, they backed off to keep bipartisan relationships from being threatened.
In 1988, the Republican George Bush (the elder) used the release on probation of convicted rapist Willie Horton and his subsequent reoffense to defeat his democratic opponent Governor Dukakis.
In 1992, Bush tried illegally to find dirt on his Democratic opponent Bill Clinton in his private passport details. Bush was unsuccessful and Bill Clinton was elected President, and re-elected in 1996.
In 1998, the Republicans used President Clinton's stretching of the truth about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky to impeach him, but did not get the require majority in the senate to remove him from the Presidency.
In 2000, George Bush (the younger), working with his brother Florida Governor Jeb Bush's in his state of Florida, defined enough ballots with “hanging chads" as spoiled to defeat his Democratic opponent Al Gore.
In 2004, Bush mounted a smear campaign against his Democratic candidate opponent John Kerry using a supposedly independent swiftboat veteran’s organisation to question Kerry's honesty and patriotism. Then, in a departure from the norm it was Bin Laden and not the Republicans who finished Kerry's campaign off, by using a pre election video to frighten more US Voters into voting for Bush.
Thankfully the Republicans did not land any successful punches with Obama in 2008.
The Republicans had encouraged the Georgians to attack the Russians, which led to pictures of Russian tanks driving across American TV Screens, a very unhappy sight for most Americans which might have been expected to drive some of them to support the Republican McCain. In a previous post I showed how McCain and the republican Bush administration made this happen. The idea was that McCain would look strong with the swiftness and ferocity of his response, while obama would prevaricate and look bad. But it didn’t work as Obama joined McCain in speaking strongly for the Georgians and against the Russians.
Obama went on to be elected, restoring my faith both in democracy and to some extent in America.

Obama, Gallup, and other pollsters

The latest gallup poll of the American Presidential race, and Gallups comments, make interesting reading. Taken between Aug 28-30, including two days since the close of the Democratic National Convention, it finds Barack Obama with a six percentage point lead over John McCain in the presidential contest, 48% to 42%. A week ago the race was about tied.

CBS news have just published a poll showing Obama 8% ahead of McCain, Rasmussen show Obama 6 points ahead, and HotlineFD 9 points ahead. I think it can safely be assumed that Obama has just experienced a substantial surge.

Gallup often records higher numbers earlier for Obama than other pollsters. Rasmussen and the pollsters usually show these higher numbers for Obama a few days later than gallup. I suspect that this pattern is because Gallup, unlike other pollsters, call cellphones as well as calling landlines to get peoples opinions. This means that Gallup immediately get through to cellphone users still at work or post work play, and record their opinions. These are predominately young Obama supporters (my 70 year old mum can’t use a mobile phone). Rasmussen and the other pollsters only get through to the younger cellphone users a few days later via their landlines when they catch them in, at which point these other pollsters start to record numbers similar to Gallup.